http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

Not only does Obama continue the worst of Dick Cheney's programs with warrantless wiretapping, but we're now authorizing the CIA to assassinate American citizens with no due process whatsoever, a step that Bush never took.

This is the type of thing I was most concerned would happen. As soon as you convince enough people that one thing is allowable, it's much easier to take the next step. What's next?

Surely this guy isn't so dangerous that we need to rip our constitution into shreds. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anyone so important. Is it really so hard to at least charge the guy with treason and convict him? Surely there's enough evidence to do that. Yes, the guy is a Bad Guy (tm), no argument there. But there are a lot of fucking scumbags in this country, and they're all equal in the eyes of the law. There's no grey area, and there should be no grey area.

Surely Obama is the first and only President of the United States to have such a practice in place!

Wake up.

According to the article - yes! Unless you're a big conspiracy theory kind of guy.

I don't think it matters how often it was or was not done in the past. It's pretty outrageous that any administration would believe it has the authority to assassinate american citizens based on allegations that the administration cannot be bothered to prove.

If we can get pinpoint his location to assassinate him, we can certainly send in a team to attempt a capture instead. If the guy is killed while resisting arrest, so be it.

We have absolutely assassinated people before, but historical precedence does not justify its use.

I'm sure lots of cops have planted evidence in order to ensure a conviction, and I'm sure lots of those people probably needed to be in jail. But it's still wrong, and the cops in question should be fired and the victim released from jail. However, it's even worse when the police commissioner admits they ordered it done to capture a specific criminal, and that it's perfectly within their rights to do so.

As far as I can tell this contains no prohibitions on the CIA assassinating this guy on US soil even. The entire subject disgusts and worries me. But I feel certain someone will come along and say we should simply trust that Obama, and all Presidents after him, wouldn't actually abuse their power, huh?

I love how it "disgusts and worries" you. What are you afraid of, really? How is your life going to be any different because of this?

Well, it would be perfectly reasonable if it was torture.

Dumb ass.

Not sure if that was directed at me or not, but I am not against torture, personally.

There's plenty to be afraid of when a government can decide to execute its citizens based solely on an allegation without any regard for due process.

Once an administration claims that power, what's to stop them from using it to silence dissent? That's not a slippery slope argument either, that's what that power directly allows; level an accusation and then execute whoever you want.

Somone accuses you of lying to get us into two wars? Say they've done something wrong and have the CIA shoot them in the face. Someone claims you were born in Kenya and thus not legally qualified to be President? Say they've done something wrong and have the CIA shoot them in the face.

Was that what Cheney was testing out? Sorry, you just can't say "shoot them in the face" without conjuring that image, especially in a political discussion.

Sounds a lot like China, which is not a good country to emulate for the government.

This is what terrorism forces people to do...make tough calls like this. It's unfortunate, but the fact is that the very nature of terrorism is that it causes conflict to spill over into other areas. There's not just a "battlefield" where we all go to happily duke it out, these guys want to get into our cities, our planes, buses, places where we meet, places where we live.

So at what point do we stop and admit to ourselves that it's not so cut and dry and we can't just say, "Oh, this isn't a "battlefield", better let that guy go." At what point do we come to realize that being an "enemy" doesn't mean they're running around with a gun shooting people?

As for the argument that the CIA is going to go around just killing people for no reason...lets be honest, they could be going around and doing that anyway. (It wouldn't really hurt my feelings if someone "accidently" flew a bomber over a Tea Party convention...KIDDING!)

All of what you've said is true, but none of it justifies killing an american citizen based solely on an unproven allegation without regard to due process. It isn't like there are no alternatives in this situation either. Attempt to capture him and bring him to trial, and if he dies while resisting, so be it or kill him on the battlefield. Those are both equally viable as killing the man outright.

I'm inclined to believe that this was done because it's simpler to kill and not risk the judicial process until after the deed is done or because they know evidence that the administration claims to have is too flimsy to hold up in court.

Out of curiosity, do you also think Bin Laden should be arrested and sent to trial, or is it ok if they happen to snipe his ass while shitting in a hole in the sand?

Is "either is fine with me" an acceptable answer?

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Of course he should be arrested if it's possible to do so, but most likely we would be forced to kill him as the people he is surrounded by would undoubtedly fight back (and possibly shoot Bin Laden themselves rather than risk him being taken alive).

I don't really see why this is a difficult concept to follow. If someone is wanted for whatever reason by the government, and they are not on a field of battle, you capture them if possible, and kill them if necessary.

I guess you missed my point before then...what is a "battlefield" when you're dealing with people whose method of attack is bombing your civilian areas, suicide bombing things in your cities, neighborhoods, etc etc?

It's a different kind of warfare, we have to think differently.

A battlefield is any area in which you have two or more opposing forces engaging in hostilities. That's been pretty much the standard since men starting pummeling and stabbing each other with stones and pointy sticks.

A suicide bomber blowing his vest while surrounding insurgents fire their weapons at another group is a situation that would be considered a battlefield. A man sitting down quietly at his table getting ready to help himself to a second serving would not.

The biggest difference is that one is an American citizen while the Bin Laden is not. No American citizen should ever be found guilty without due process.

This isn't really a "tough call". The rules of engagement, and the moral high ground is VERY clear. Anything else is just sugar coating the fact that you're doing the EXACT same thing they are. Yes, I'm comparing assassination with 9/11 in terms of morality. The body count is irrelevant.

I find it troubling just how many people (and not just on these forums) are ok with this.

For me, "targetted assassination" is one of the policies that moved me to be anti-Israel (the state, not the citizens). Now, to see MY country engaging in the same types of actions disgusts me.

Yes, Neesha it disgusts and worries me. You may be fine with it as long as it doesn't interfere with you but remember that you need to add 'yet' to your noninterference assumption.

Our government is sworn to uphold the constitution. That and defense of the country are, imo, the most important duties of the Federal Government. I really would like to see/hear a legal defense of this policy. Sadly, I find myself hoping the dude comes to US soil and files a lawsuit to test the constitutionality of this policy now, before it goes any further. So, in essence, my government has managed to have me unhappily siding with someone whose belief sysytem I find despicable against them in this very narrow area.

Thanks, Barry.

I don't like this either.

After reading the article it didn't seem entirely clear to me... Did Obama simply say that they had authorization to kill if a serious threat should emerge with this person, and/or did he also allow in his language that this person could be captured if possible? Greenwald has a bit of knack for overexaggerations, and something like "Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen!" certainly sounds like one on the face of it.

I mean, if you take Devyn's example of the guy pulling out the suicide vest trigger being a potential battlefield, it wouldn't be too that far-fetched. Pretty sure most police forces have the authorization to kill if people are a threat to themselves or those around them. Not comparing the two since we obviously need a separation between police and military forces, but a serious threat to the nation(that, at its head, comes from foreign sources even if the individual is a U.S. citizen) and its people seems to fall within the means of asking for federal help in tracking the son of a bitch down.

^^ this

I'm surprised to see anyone arguing in favor of assassination, actually.

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Curious for someone who hasn't read the constitution for anything but classes in high school; 20 years ago.

Please educate me. Other than being mentioned in Presidential disability declarations, where does the Constitution mention assassination, and whether the U.S. government should or can engage in in the act? Or where does it say it should NOT do so?

Not concerned at the moment with whether it's justified, or whether its a U.S. citizen so much at the moment, just to where its constitutionally mandated or forbidden one way or the other in the document.

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.



Regarding targeted assassination of non-US citizens, that is an area of international law and depends on the specific nation in which it occurs. It is spelled out in US anti-terrorist policy. It does raise an interesting question though. If we decide that it is justified to target terrorists without due process, and outside the legal system of the nation they live in, how exactly can we then condemn Israeli actions against Hamas or Russian actions against Chechnya?

Against an American citizen, it's obvious why the topic is abhorrent. Against non-citizens, it's the hypocrisy that cocks eyebrows.

But we do that all the time if someone is deemed enough of an immediate threat by whoever is on the scene at the time. Police or even citizens can make that call under various circumstances.

It just seems like there's a lot of hazy areas here. The concept of a "battlefield" isn't even a great way to define things. Were factories in Germany "battlefields"? When we fire long-range missiles or drop bombs on otherwise quiet places because we believe high-priority targets are there, are those "battlefields"? Or a sniper firing on someone who's not actively engaged in combat?

When someone is deemed a target or an enemy combatant, who makes that determination? The military or executive branch just operating on intelligence.

Does the concept of posing an immediate threat mean anything to you?

John Gotti killed a lot of people. Indirectly. He orchestrated and planned tons of murders, and other crimes. Would it be ok for the police to march into his mansion and shoot him in the face? The answer is: of course it's not! If you agree with that answer, and you must if you believe in due process, then you already know the answers to your question. So please spare us the exercise in establishing your cluelessness for this week.

now that they have the thermal scope everyone can be a sniper regardless of skill

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And yet, despite all your attempts at looking superior, you managed to miss the point, Joxur. Pretty standard. Thank you for not disappointing us.

There's a difference between the 'threat' the authorization posits and the 'immediate threat of loss of life'. The latter is what enables the police and citizens (of some states) to use lethal force without being charged with murder.

and still after most all police involved shootings there is an inquiry to see if the shooting was "justified"

I'm aware. Simply pointing out that there are circumstances even in our own domestic matters where we are forced to make those decisions. In no way was it meant to suggest - as Joxur apparently took it - to mean that I think police should go into people's houses and shoot them.

Admittedly, I'm also playing a bit of devil's advocate here. There's a lot of moral high ground talk here, but I'm curious as to how far people's sense of morality reaches, and where morality and pragmatism meet.

It's also the concept of "battlefields" that people use that bothers me. We're not fighting the Nazi's here, we're fighting people who want the battlefield to be our cities and civilian areas...do we just wait for them to strike? There's certainly no way for us to engage these kinds of people on a "battlefield" so how far do we go to stop them before we say we're not being moral enough anymore?

If a sniper had a clear shot on Osama Bin Laden tomorrow, and he was just sitting down drinking a cup of tea and watching the birds in the sky, would it be cool for the sniper to take that shot, far from any traditional "battlefield"?

It is wrong to order the killing of an American citizen without due process.

Please, argue with that. You're inventing scenarios that don't exist. It's wrong, period, end of discussion. There's no imminent threat - no one needs to account for that because our laws ALREADY DO - if someone is in imminent danger, members of our military and law enforcement have clear ground rules on how to proceed. This isn't the case here. This is a case of Obama authorizing the CIA to kill an American citizen without due process.

The discussion seemed to go a little beyond this particular instance...but ok, I'll bite.

(For the sake of completeness, and since you seem to be foaming at the mouth as usual about Obama...it's worth noting that at least one such attack killing an american citizen did occur under the Bush administration.)

It's also worth noting that it's a "kill or capture" order. I'm sure if they had a reasonable chance, or if he was found on US soil, they'd go for the capture option. It's not like they put a ninja-hit on him. But if he's found to be residing somewhere in Afghanistan or something as part of a terrorist cell actively planning the deaths of our troops and/or civilians...what do we do? That's why there's two parts to the order, it's not just "assassination" as you say, while conveniently leaving out the other half.

I'll say that I don't exactly love the idea of a citizen being targeted for "kill or capture". But when someone is identified as a member of a terrorist organization targeting our nation with the intent of waging war upon us and they're a citizen of the United States, isn't that evidence enough for an arrest on the grounds of treason? Conspiracy to commit murder? Terrorism? Doesn't that all fall under the heading of "due process"?

I don't believe that morality and pragmatism meet at all; they are two entirely different codes.

A question for you, Bovinity; one I feel a little corny for even asking...

What does America mean to you? Is it just where you happened to be born and the government that sets the rules you play by?

I don't consider myself some great patriot but I can say that the idea of America, as stated in the preamble & constitution, has meaning to me. Does it for you?

Beh you posted while I was posting...



What evidence? The Obama Administration "identfies" someone and that rises to the level of "evidence"? "due process" doesn't mean that the government suspects you of having moved beyond words and thus you can suddenly be deemed a "terrorist". I hope to never live under your interpretation of the constitution.

It's easy to try to play that game, and I'm not even going to justify it with any sort of meaningful reply. Just pointless rhetoric trying to preempt the moral high ground.

(And yes, someone will say, "You just called the Constitution 'pointless rhetoric'!!" I'm sure Fox News will be happy to accept your resume.)



We don't know what kind of evidence they have on every Al-Qaeda operative, no. They don't have to loudly trumpet to the world what evidence they have before an arrest, though. Not even domestic police necessarily have to do that.

And again, I'm not sure what that has to do with the constitution. I feel bad for that poor document, always being waved around by one side or the other, claiming its on their side.

And for the record, "words" are often enough to allow for an arrest. That's why we have "Conspiracy to commit..." laws for a variety of offenses. (Even acts that are later prevented) So yes, if they have intelligence demonstrating he was part of a conspiracy to commit some terrorist act, then that's sufficient to allow for his arrest, yes?

Ok, I'll play...

A Us citizen is not "every Al-Qaeda operative".

I object to the 'legalizing' of assassination without regards to due process, not any attempt to arrest the dude.



Yes, indeed. Words can be sufficient to allow an arrest to be made. But those words have to withstand judicial scrutiny in order for a warrant to be issued, no? As was said above, barring an imminent threat, you just can't arrest people without some kind of due process.

I'm still curious where Obama suggested that he would assassinate this person without an immediate threat present. Far as I can tell: Authority to assassinate? Yes. Authority to assassinate without an immediate threat? No.

Well, I was using domestic law comparisons to try to make the point, but I'm sure that wartime (even though this isn't technically a war) laws are different in some ways. I don't know the specifics though, I'd have to edumacate myself on the details.

Law of Armed Conflict makes a huge distinction between combatants and noncombatants. And being a dude who's dangerous isn't the same thing as being a combatant. Gotta figure that the 14th amendment trumps LoAC in this case, and I'm curious as to how this thought to be OK.

If he's actually participating in attacks, as the administration claims, wouldn't that make him a combatant? O_o

I mean, I'd like some checks and balances as well to be sure that the administration isn't heavy-handing the intelligence, but they're some of the few that have access to it =/

I'd prefer that we bring a guy in and have him receive due process if at all possible without anyone else getting hurt. Unfortunately, if he is an imminent threat and we let the guy go, I'm pretty sure we're working *against* the 14th amendment by depriving the people that die as a result from life.

That's the part I'm interested in. At what point does a terrorist fall under the Unlawful Combatant category for their past deeds, even if they're not doing something violent right THIS moment?

That distinction only applies to non-US citizens.

That is incorrect.

The Supreme Court case Ex parte Quirin (1942) established the precedent that a U.S. Citizen can be declared an unlawful combatant. Herbert Hans Haupt had dual German/American citizenship but was brought before a military tribunal - not a standard court of law - and executed as an enemy agent despite no acts of sabotage having actually been committed.

It is also worth noting that in the case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, it was the opinion of the court that a U.S. Citizen could be held as an enemy combatant for the "duration of active hostilities". The opinion also states that "there is no bar to this nation holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant." (However, they also stated that said citizen has a right to challenge his status as an enemy combatant via a neutral decisionmaker.)

/nod. Makes sense too, it's not as if being a U.S. citizen automatically makes it so you can't participate in combative activity against the state/people.

The Geneva Convention supersedes the Quirin case. And at any rate those men were acting for the German military and entered the US, or tried to anyway, in military uniforms. The guy with citizenship was one of six. Being actors for the German military, why should they not have all been tried by the military? And of course there is the little detail of them actually getting a trial before being executed.

There are laws to which US citizens are subject for each and every crime with which an 'unlawful combatant' could be charged. Being a citizen gives them the right to due process, so the distinction grants nothing different above and beyond what could already happen. It has been used in the recent past, illegally, to detain citizens who I believe were later released. Right to due process has been upheld, though slowly, regarding folks detained for terrorist activities.

Unlawful combatant means specific things under the law. One can use it to describe anything; but the legal backing to it does not necessarily apply. It can be tangled up if, for instance, a citizen is engaged in military action against the US in Afghanistan. But eventually the distinction breaks down because as a citizen they have rights. The whole discussion is about whether it is right to specifically deny a citizen the right to due process. It is not about fallaciously used nomenclature.

Bottom line is the administration gave the nod to terminate a citizen without due process. The CIA is not going to hold a hearing with a judge and witnesses. They're just going to smoke him.

Not sure what you're getting at with "fallaciously used nomenclature".

You said the rules of unlawful/enemy combatants don't apply to US citizens. The Supreme Court disagrees.

And "due process" was only used in reference to holding a citizen indefinitely. It says nothing about the actual act of capture without a warrant, imprisonment without trial or killing of one as an enemy.

Bovinity, you are again referring to "deeds" that the Administration has not even said they can prove; just that they 'believe' that he has moved beyond words. You can't change the facts of the situation to help your argument.

Also, I don't believe anyone here is arguing that if they locate the dude with a weapon in his hand and he threatens them that they need to take every conceivable action to insure he is captured rather than killed including putting themselves and others at risk of death.

There is a huge difference between someone being killed during a capture attempt and someone being murdered as a result of their government declaring that it's ok.



Who is talking about letting the guy go? You are assuming only 2 options: his death or his freedom. I, and I'm fairly sure most others, are calling for due process, not either of your options.

Define what you think the rules for unlawful combatants are.

I'm saying a term is not relevant if the rules it imposes do not apply to the person it is used against. If a citizen decides to plot to blow up a bus station, he won't be held as an unlawful combatant. He'll be held for a charge levied by the court of law that he is subject to as a US citizen. Not all countries recognize all things as crimes. And not all countries are willing to give up their jurisdiction over their people. Holding them as 'unlawful combatants' is more directly applied toward international law.

Capture without a warrant is legal, happens all the time. Imprisonment without trial is not, and was upheld as such. Imprisonment indefinitely is basically the same as imprisonment without trial. Killing a combatant on the battlefield is legal. Heck, killing a civilian on a battlefield is legal if they're not native to the country it's in. The Geneva tag I wear technically doesn't apply to me.

You're apparently still under the impression that the declaration of "enemy combatant" and the accompanying actions have to follow the same burden of proof and legal process that standard domestic arrests and charges do. They do not.



But nothing in the Geneva Convention prohibits the actions taken in the Quirin case.





Again, incorrect. Feel free to listen to the reading of the Supreme Court decisions. Justice O'Connor clearly states that it is perfectly acceptable for the United States to treat a citizen as an enemy combatant and hold and detain them as such for the duration of hostilities.

There is also the issue brought up in Reid v. Covert where the standard of "impractiable and anomalous" was coined to determine if the Constitution was applicable to peoples overseas. It would be easy to argue that extending fulle Cons

And of course, there's still the issue of the killing part of the order. This is where it can be a lot more complex due to the definition of a "battlefield". Since the enemy in this case is willfully extending the battlefield to an unpredictable and undefined set of areas, it could be argued that the battlefield is comprised of the entire theater of operations. (ie. Afghanistan, Iraq)

But really, the bottom line is that it's a complex situation that hasn't had a single definitive ruling yet, and consitutional scholars with a lot more experience than any of us disagree on it. I know a lot of people are "going with their gut" on this one, and I agree that it feels wrong to have something like this happen, but that's not how the law works.

Hm, oops. I seem to have cut a portion of my paragraph off. That should read that, "It would be easy to argue that extending full constitiutional rights to a citizen working with the Taliban in Afghanistan or Iraq could be considered 'impractical and anomalous'."

So many experts, so few bullets.

I wish I posted more in this forum, so I could know literally everything.

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Then lay them out succinctly.

The Geneva Convention expressly addresses the actions taken in the Quirin case. That case has nothing to do with denying due process. They were afforded due process. A US citizen is guaranteed rights under the Constitution. So getting back to it, where did the Supreme Court say that it's ok to execute an American citizen without due process?

A battlefield is a war zone, and the wars were declared over; different rules apply. We're not at war with Iraq or with Afghanistan. The War on Terror is like the War on Drugs, a focus rather than a 'war'.

You cannot kill an enemy combatant, unless they fire first or pose a direct threat, during peace keeping operations. Of course, the CIA can play by different rules. But they can only do as much as the administration allows them to. Apparently this one is willing to go a step further than the previous.

I quoted the Quirin case to address your assertion that a label of "combatant" could not be applied to a citizen and the fact that a citizen could be tried and executed as said combatant without standard domestic procedures. It wasn't meant to address due process.



I'll be frank here...the case law and such is all so vague and in some cases somewhat conflicting that it's difficult for a lay person (ie, all of us) to really make very much sense of it.

There's nothing *directly* referring to the killing of a U.S. Citizen yet. Which is part of the difficulty. There's a lot of individual references to allowing the declaration of a citizen as an enemy combatant, allowances for the capture and detention of said combatants, the standard of "impractiable and anomalous" application of constitutional rights, and I'm sure an entire plethora of case law and regulations and such that is far too much for any of us to dig through.

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that when the law is in that sort of state, it's easy for skilled lawyers and lawmakers on either side to make a case for their view. That's why, as I said before, we're really all just arguing "from the gut" here.

"from the gut" = "for the sake of arguing"

The sake of arguing is fun. It's punishment for no one talking about the World Cup.